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Curried Pork

A pork dish flavored with curry powder, wine vinegar, garlic, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,368 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Curried Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Cut the pork into dice-shaped pieces.

  2. Soak the pork in wine vinegar mixed with crushed garlic for a few hours.

Cook

  1. In a stewpan, heat the butter.

  2. Add curry powder and flour to the butter and stir well.

  3. Add the marinated pork and cook until done.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Vinegar + garlictop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Wine + garlictop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lean pork
Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks through.
Wine vinegar
Acidity in the marinade that tenderises the pork and adds a sharp tang.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that defines the dish.
Flour
Stirred into the hot butter with curry powder, it thickens the cooking juices into a light sauce.
Butter
Fat that carries the curry spices and helps the pork brown lightly in the pan.

The step that matters

Blooming the curry powder and flour in butter. Stirring the spices and flour into hot fat for a moment releases fat-soluble aroma compounds and cooks out the raw flour taste. Stirring well keeps the flour from clumping or scorching before the pork goes in.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, wine, vinegar, garlic, flour, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, wine, vinegar, garlic, flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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